The present invention relates generally to cradle assemblies for moving items into and out of storage, especially the movement of items with irregular bottoms, or lower regions, into which a cradle assembly engages. More particularly, but not by way of limitation, the present invention relates to an improvement to an adjustable cradle assembly for the dry storage of watercraft.
The current improvements to such cradle assemblies enhance the engagement between the cradle assembly and the bottom, or hull, of the watercraft. Additionally, the current improvements facilitate the transportation of multiple watercrafts by a single cradle. The current improvements also facilitate reduction in expensive construction features in the dry storage facility. The improvements include an adjustable width to the cradle and a safe extension of the watercraft into a dry storage bay from the cradle.
It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that watercraft transportation devices have existed for many years. However, most of these transportation devices are in the form of trailers or land anchored platforms that use the watercraft's power and/or a crank to pull the watercraft out of the water by its bow. For example U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,612,602, 6,099,014, 5,882,170, 6,520,728, 6,189,909, 6,446,997, 6,719,317, 6,752,099, 6,644,231, 6,490,987, 6,327,990, and 6,263,820, all disclose such transportation devices.
Additionally, the dry storage of watercraft is becoming increasingly popular over the years. This dry dock storage includes a stacked or vertical arrangement of watercraft storage slips, or bays. The watercraft is lifted from the water's surface and placed in the stacked arrangements. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,007,288 discloses one such watercraft storage system. However, the conventional art has a drawback based on the wide variety of watercraft that is currently popular and available. Currently, most watercraft at a given dray storage facility vary in over all length, depth and width between individual watercraft. As such, any lifting apparatus used to place the watercraft from the water surface into the storage system should be able to handle this variety. However, currently the conventional lifting apparatus that move the watercraft from the water surface to the dry storage area lack the capability and flexibility to vary their dimensions in order to adapt to the variance in the watercraft.
The conventional dry storage facilities for watercraft also typically use long cantilever beams extending from a wall, or a vertical support structure, within the dry storage facility. These cantilever beams can be expensive to manufacture and assemble within the storage facility but are typically required due to the variance in length of the watercraft and the required interaction between the individual storage bay and the transport cradle that positions the watercraft in the individual bays.
As such, what is lacking in the art is a cradle assembly that can vary its dimensions to substantially adapt to the variance in watercraft sizes in order to transport that watercraft to a storage area. Also, the art lacking a safe adaptation to cradle assemblies that interact with storage bays to position the watercraft in the bays while reducing the costs and assembly times associated with the storage facility.